A Good Day to Live
by TheFinduilas
Summary: Can you ever learn to live without sight? But would you want to keep on living?
1. A Good Day to Die

**Title:** A Good Day to Live

**Author:** TheFinduilas

**Main Character:** Agent Sands

**Supporting Character:** Chicle Boy, additional OC's

**Rating:** PG-13 for strong language

**Disclaimer:** Sands & Chicle belong to Rodriguez & Co.

* * *

**Chapter 1: A Good Day to Die**

**Summary:** It's the Day of the Dead and Sands is dying.

* * *

The Kid proved to be strangely persistent. 

Sands had told him to fuck off, in no uncertain terms, more times than he cared to count, but Chicle would just stand there, unmoving, saying in a small voice "No puedo", I can't.

See that, Kid? (**_See_** that!) Ramirez can leave blind Agents to die. Ramirez can fuck off when he's told to. So can El Mariachi and the Mariachiettes. So why can't you?

'No puedo.' Once again in that apologetic voice, filled with sorrow and hope. Sands thought that this time he could hear tears in it, as well.

What did a man have to do to be allowed to die in this place? It was the Day of the Fucking Dead, for God's sake! How much more appropriate could a death wish be?

But the same people who were decorating the town with skeletons (there was no accounting for taste!) wouldn't let him be one.

Just go away! No puedo.

'Just go, Chicle,' he insisted, facing The Kid as he removed his sunglasses, hoping the gory sight would finally scare the boy away.

There was silence. Good! Perhaps he was alone at last, free to die.

He realized he wasn't when he heard soft, shuffling footsteps walking towards him. What would you know: the kid had cojones. Instead of running, Chicle just sat down beside Sands, held his hand, and sobbed.

'Grandma will take care of you', was all the boy said, between sobs, as he looked into the disturbing twin wounds, and gently palmed Sands's face.

And it was then that Sands decided to wait until the next day to die.

Everything that followed became a blur. He remembered being led by The Kid, small fingers holding his left hand. His right hand felt walls, doorways, lampposts. Then he was in a house. There was an old woman talking, Chicle held him. Later there was a man. There were gasps, there was pain, there was gauze and tape. Pills. Oh there were a lot of those.

Then there was restless sleep.

When the following day dawned, it was indeed a good day to die.

But he didn't. "No puedes", you can't, Chicle told him. So he lived.

And he learned a lot that day.

He learned that eyes that didn't exist could hurt like a mother. That you could never take too many Codeine tablets. In fact, that there weren't enough Codeine tablets in the world to quench your pain.

He learned that your brain could scream the word "BLIND" for hours on end and not get tired. That the moment you heard a sound you'd turn your head expecting to see. That there was no worse feeling in the world than realizing you **couldn't**. That your brain would then restart its chant with the intensity doubled.

He learned that food had no taste when you couldn't see it. But worst of all, he learned that he had been lied to, all his life: you didn't get heightened senses when you lost your sight. You kept the same old senses you always had. Minus one.

The most important one.

The day after that (not a good day to die) was also very instructional. And so was the week that followed.

Wasn't it just dandy that you could learn something new and depressing every day of your life? Because it meant that no matter how deep your funk, it could only get worse tomorrow.


	2. Ugly Eunuchs Under a Vow of Silence

**Chapter 2: Ugly Eunuchs Under a Vow of Silence**

**Summary:** Sands, healing under the care of Chicle's Grandmother, thinks about his future so-called life. He doesn't like what he doesn't see.

* * *

If his calculations were correct – which they probably weren't, since telling time was a bit difficult at present – he had been in the house for some eight days. In that time, he had somehow gotten attached to the little old lady (not that little nor that old, really), much in the way that one gets attached to a mongrel who hangs around you all day.

The Kid, now the kid was a different thing. He owed The Kid his life. And he owed him his Myth.

Oh, there **would** be a myth about the Blind Gunfighter from the Day of the Dead: he had no doubt about that. After all, his tale had all the components of a poem told over candlelight; and this was Mexico, where an opportunity for Hero-worship was never passed over. Just look at the fuckmook with the guitar, for a glaring and perfect example. El My Butt.

There was a lot you could say about Agent Sands (most of it being impolite in good company), but you had to give him credit for strictly abiding by his Code of Honour.

It wasn't a particularly lengthy Code. Point One said that anything goes. Point Two said you didn't touch women or children.

(The recently created amendment to Point Two said that people called María 'Ajedrez' Barillo weren't women – they were fucking insane bloodthirsty bitches and, therefore, fair game.)

Then there was Point Three, which said that if someone saved your life, it was your duty to look after **their** life. So Chicle (sorry, _Gabriel_) was under his protection, even though there had to be a loophole somewhere. After all, he was saved when he plainly wanted to die, which condemned him to forever living in fucking blind helplessness.

Blind. It amused him to no end how his brain always managed to sneak that word into every thought that fleeted through his mind. Blind. Blind. Blind.

"Never again" - he still struggled to fully comprehend the meaning of this expression, struggled to grasp the inevitable sense of eternity that it enclosed.

Never again. He'd **never** see **again**. No fucking sunshine. No fucking grey days. No seas, no lands. None of Cucuy's ugly joke-of-nature mug. None of _The_ Mariachi's melodramatic pained looks. No wide-eyed cooks pleading for their life while puerco pibil marinated in tequila. No eyeholes asking to be skull-fucked.

Eyeholes. Funny how he now had two of his very own, and he'd never get to see them. Truth be told, they might not be something he'd want to see: Bellini's eye-socket had thoroughly disgusted him. On the ugliness scale from Cucuy to Margaret Thatcher, The Socket came just before Janet Reno.

Ugly. He stopped to wonder if it was legitimate to mourn the loss of his looks when he was supposed to be mourning the loss of his sight. (The loss of his sight, Oh God!) He supposed it just meant he was superficial, as well. An ugly, superficial blind fucker. Oh how Ajedrez had improved him!

No woman would have him now. No man, either, but that, of course, was a good thing. He wasn't prepared to consider the possibilities that sheep offered, so he was looking at a life of celibacy. An ugly, superficial, celibate blind fucker. Non-fucker, actually. (He almost chuckled at his own joke.)

Maybe he should join a monastery. He could be celibate there, and not feel out of place. And you didn't need eyes to kneel in your cell all day from 4 am, praying for atonement. He could even join one of those Orders that obey a vow of silence, to make sure none of his fellow monks turned to him and shouted "Holy Fuck, what the Hell happened to your eyes?!". He briefly wondered if he'd have to cut his hair into a bob and shave the top of his head.

His brain decided to put a dent in his plans for a life of service by reminding him that he wasn't a Catholic. Hell, he wasn't even religious. He could be mistaken, but believing in God was probably a requirement when one applied for Monkhood.

Sands then wondered if there were still any job opportunities for eunuchs, out there. Was there a harem somewhere in Turkey in dire need of his eyeless celibate self?

In the depths of his subconscious, he knew what he was doing. He knew that thinking about his blindness as if it were a joke was just a ruse his brain was using to stop from considering the real issues. Issues like Braille, white cane, disability, darkness, disorientation, pain.

Yes, it was much better to think about Turkish Harems and Silent Monks.

He was just about to start contemplating his employability as a horror movie extra, when a doorbell echoed through the house.

From what he had been able to gather, his room was located on the left side of the house. His bed faced a door – which was usually closed – through which was a hall or living-room. The front door opened into it, and he guessed that if he had eyes, he might be able to see the door from his position in bed.

Beyond the "main room" was a kitchen (revealed by the clanking of pots and pans) and one or more rooms that he knew nothing about. He had recently stopped caring about what was beyond his reach. If he didn't see it, it didn't exist.

The kid's grandmother jingled some pans in the kitchen, and then walked to the front door, softly talking to herself. Sands heard the door open and the old woman launched into an explosion of joy, as someone walked into the house. It was clearly somebody she had wanted to see.

His brain couldn't resist the opportunity of pointing out to him that that was because, unlike some people, she **could** see.

The woman blabbered on, asking a myriad questions (how are you - are you hungry – how was the trip), but never stopping to listen for an answer. As she spoke, her voice changed pitch slightly, as she noisily stampeded her way through the room with the Visitor.

Unexpectedly, Grandmother stopped walking and lowered her voice to a whisper. Sands realized she was talking about him. The Visitor finally spoke, also in a whisper, but he could hear enough to realize that it was a woman, not too old nor too young.

A woman! Was it just him, or were things finally starting to look up? ("Look up", there's something else he couldn't do.) He was grinning to himself and pondering the endless possibilities that the presence of a woman in the house offered, when his brain spoke up.

"Ugly celibate eunuch" was all his brain had to say, but he knew what it meant.

He was preparing to launch into a beautiful moment of masochistic self-pity when he was distracted by the fact that the two women had raised their voices to a normal conversational tone. His Spanish was much more than adequate, so he could easily follow what they were saying.

'I've got to go out to the vegetable market,' this was Grandmother speaking, he knew her voice. 'You look after him.'

The image of a sexy bombshell in a skimpy nurse costume "looking after him" (hint hint) fleeted across his mind's eye. (That one Ajedrez had let him keep.)

'Where's Gabri?' the younger voice asked, and there was a hint of sad expectation in it that even an inconsiderate bastard like Sands couldn't miss.

The older woman waited a few seconds before answering in a defeated voice. 'Out selling Chicle. Sheldon's medicine was expensive.'

He had thought he couldn't possibly feel worse than he had been feeling that morning, but he should have known better.

There was a child out there peddling gum to uncaring tourists, to pay for his pills. Pills that, incidentally, couldn't give him his eyes back.

Fuck.

He wriggled further down between the bedsheets, pulled them over his head, and willed himself to unconsciousness.


	3. Gloria, Gloria, Hallelujah

**Chapter 3: Gloria, Gloria, Hallelujah**

**Summary:** Sands realizes that blind people aren't helpless.

* * *

There was a knock on his door and he was roused from sleep. He was dreaming a nice dream. There were images in it, not darkness, and that was enough to make it "nice" in his book. He couldn't remember much, but he knew there had been some kind of orgy going on between monks, belly dancers and nurses, while he looked on. Sometimes he just loved the way his mind worked.

Whoever had knocked gave an encore performance, and he pushed the last images of the dream from his mind. 'Come in,' he said, fighting his desire to reply "Stay Out", instead.

The door creaked open (somebody should take a q-tip dipped in oil to that thing!), and soft footsteps carefully made their way into the room. He was damned if he couldn't smell something vaguely reminiscent of an omelette.

The footsteps stopped at a reasonable distance from the bed, and a female voice spoke up in Spanish. 'I've made you some lunch. Nothing heavy, just some scrambled eggs and some milk.'

He listened for a few seconds, but could hear nothing to help him draw a clearer picture of her in his mind. 'You're the new girl', he stated, instead.

'No, **you**'re the new guy. **I**'ve lived here all my life,' she replied, and he would put money on the fact that she was grinning: he could hear it in her voice. She had a sense of humour; maybe he could learn to tolerate her. 'I'm Gloria,' she added. 'Can I put the tray on your bed?'

He ignored her last question. 'You live here? Where have you been all this time? I've been here for eigh—who knows how long, and I've never seen you before.' Fuckmook! **Of course** you've never seen her before, and you'll never see her in your lifetime. Blind. Blind. Blind.

'I was selling my baskets at the market in Mazatlan. There are more tourists there, so business is better and---,' she suddenly stopped, and Sands imagined she was shaking her head at herself.

So the kid sold gum, and the chick sold baskets... He felt some kind of emotion he didn't recall feeling in a very long time – if he had to put a name to it, he might have gone for "compassion".

She chuckled. 'Why am I talking to you about baskets?' It was clearly a rhetorical question. 'I just want to give you your lunch, all right?'

'All right, give it here.' Her soft footsteps restarted, as she walked towards his bed. He felt hands brush across his arms lightly, and a woven-cane tray was placed on his lap (he briefly wondered if it was the kind of weave she sold in Mazatlan).

She spoke again, her voice level with his head: she must be crouching. 'There's some scrambled eggs in the plate, and some apple. I cut it into squares for you. There's toast on the left of the tray, and a glass of milk to the right of the plate. Try not to spill it.' He heard her clothes ruffle as she stood up.

He looked directly at where he imagined her head to be, did his best impression of a sighted glare, and wondered how intimidating a pair of bandages and surgical-tape could be. 'How am I supposed to eat?' The demanding tone in his voice was intentional.

'Oh, right. Forgot: there's a fork to the right of the plate,' she replied. He waited for her to go on, to do **something**, but she just stood there.

He was pissed. 'That's it?! Am I supposed to feed myself? I can't see the damned food! The Kid's Grandmother always helps me.' There. That should get the chick in line.

It clearly didn't. 'Well, I am not going to feed you. That's got to stop. You've got to feed yourself.' Her voice was soft and supportive, but he hated what she was saying.

'Are you deaf?' he shouted. 'I can't fucking **see**. Have you any idea what that's like? Have you any idea what it's like to be surrounded by unchanging darkness, every single second of the day, every single fucking day?' he was still shouting and he didn't care. 'I can't see the fucking fork, I can't see the fucking plate, I can't see the fucking eggs, I can't even see the fucking tray. So don't tell me what to do.' He crossed his arms across his chest, his fingers having a very close encounter with the glass of milk, which wobbled precariously. He ignored the voice in his head that told him he looked childish.

Her voice was still soft. 'Actually, I do have a very good idea.'

Huh? What was she talking about?

'I'm blind. Just as blind as you are,' she said. But she couldn't possibly mean it literally, could she?

On the other hand, it did make a strange kind of sense. After all, he had been wondering who in their right minds would put up with a bitter newly blinded stranger. Answer: a family where blindness was a normal part of life. Probably part of their "Save the Blind" Crusade.

It also explained Gabriel's dedication to him on the Day of the Dead, and the care with which he guided him. (True, the kid had walked him into a veranda, but that was before he realized Sands couldn't see.) His mother (Sister? Cousin?) was blind.

'You're blind,' he said, and the sentence held a hundred questions. Apparently, she heard them.

'Yes. Stray bullet. To the head. Cartel bullet, meant for somebody else. I was 11, selling gum in the wrong place at the wrong time,' her voice had lost none of its softness, and he wondered how she could speak about it with such inner peace. He'd like to know if in ten years (Fifteen years? Twenty?) he'd be able to do the same.

Thinking about it, he guessed the Kid's Grandmother felt it was her Mission to look after him, because she was seeing history repeat itself. He had been blinded by Cartel just like Gloria had.

Gloria was blind. His mind was racing, hovering over fleeting bits of information. She had gone to Mazatlan by herself. She had made it back. She had cooked him lunch. She worked. She was looking after him.

'You're blind,' was all he said. If she could see, she would have seen the thoughtful look on his face.

Maybe there was hope for him yet.

He reached for his fork, and aimed at the scrambled eggs.


	4. Better Than Sex

(A/N at the end of the chapter.)

**Chapter 4: Better Than Sex**

**Summary**: Dr. García tends to the wounded

* * *

Sands fed himself. He fucking _fed himself_.

It took him an hour – sixty miserable shitty minutes of spearing invisible eggs and apple with a fork he couldn't see, while his brain ran through its repertoire of negative emotions. Frustration, defeat and anger had all dropped by for lunch. But the guest who stayed the longest was despair.

Deep, irresistible despair that rocked his whole being.

It was there, in his Adam's apple, making it hard to swallow. He felt it at the bottom of his stomach, and he could no longer tell the dry heaves and the sobs apart. It made his abdominal muscles cramp and his bones ache. He drowned.

He had never known despair could feel like this.

Sands supposed he should feel proud of himself. He should pretend that feeding himself was somehow this fucking great achievement, up there with finding the cure for cancer and ending famine. But he couldn't. He couldn't celebrate the fact that he had achieved the level of independence of a two year-old.

This wasn't life. It just wasn't.

Throughout his lunch ordeal, Gloria didn't say a word, and neither did he. She just stood there (or maybe she didn't, he couldn't tell). When he finished, the only words he managed to get out were 'I'm done. Thank you.'

'You're welcome,' she replied with empathy in her voice, and removed the tray from his lap. This time he noticed how her fingertips brushed his arms when she tried to locate the tray.

Fuck blindness. Just fuck it to Hell and leave it to die.

As the contents of the tray jingled lightly, she walked out of his room, crossed the "hall", and went into the kitchen. The familiar sounds of china and cutlery stopped and Gloria disappeared from his world – a world defined by the reach of his hearing.

He was left alone to think.

That was never a good thing.

Before he had the chance to stop it, his brain was pondering the many meanings of the word "Blind" – one of his new favourite hobbies. Once he was done, he repeated the exercise from the top, just to be extra sure he wasn't leaving anything out.

He then amused himself by running through his growing list of things he'd never see again. That list was now alphabetised - it was **that** long. He chuckled. And then worried about his mental sanity. Or perhaps he chuckled because it was true that when you ran out of tears all you had left was laughter.

He couldn't say how much time had passed when the sound of the doorbell broke the silence that enveloped him. Gloria abandoned whatever she was doing and returned to the land of the living, as the sound of her footsteps re-entered Sands's world.

She opened the front door and a male voice greeted her. Sands couldn't really catch much (Close the front door, fuckers! I can't eavesdrop with all that racket outside!), but it sounded like the man was just making polite conversation about Mazatlan.

The street-noise was shut out. There were footsteps, and his door was opened slowly. Sands couldn't hear any movement – they must be staring at him. Figuratively speaking, in Gloria's case. After a few seconds, she spoke up in a whisper. 'Sheldon, are you asleep?'

He grunted a negative, and this seemed to please her. 'Dr. García is here to see you,' she said, in a tone of voice one usually reserves for children. "Your little friend has come over to play."

García. Well, surprise, surprise. The fucker dropped by every day like clockwork, anxious to dig into Sands's wounds. He must have a serious case of bandage fetish - maybe he was into bondage. Sombrero, fluffy Xicano moustache, black leather Dominatrix costume, white lab coat.

The doctor also suffered from disturbing loquaciousness. He launched into rapid-fire pointless conversation as soon as he approached Sands and started fiddling with the bullet-hole in his left thigh. Talk, talk, prod, pick, wash, smear, prod, talk. It just went on and on, as it did every day.

Sands couldn't care less. He had discovered that everything stopped being real now that all he saw was blackness – he found he could just retreat into his mind, and block out the world, including overeager chatty village doctors tending to wounds that should hurt.

Only they didn't hurt. Because, you see, your brain could only concentrate on one kind of pain at a time. And when you had your eyes ripped out of your head, all other pain became pedestrian.

He had recently developed a new fantasy. There were no Polynesian twins with breasts hard as grapefruits in this fantasy, and there was no frolicking in the sand, surf and sun under a coconut tree. No, his new fantasy was infinitely better than all the ones that came before it.

In it, Dr. García had been able to save one of his eyes (Sands now realized you didn't need two) and it was there, healing, under the protective cover of one of the cotton pads taped across his sockets.

The best moment was when the good doc removed the pad and his eye was bombarded with all the colours of the rainbow and all the shapes in the world. It was better than a thousand orgasms.

Polynesian twins couldn't even come close.

Sands smiled in rapture, but García just kept blabbering on. Something about how his bullet-grazed arm had healed nicely, and how the bandages should be kept off his leg wounds from now on. (Bandages off? What happened to your fetish, doc?) Arm and legs, legs and arm. Who cared about those? Eyes. Eyes were all that mattered.

Dr. García must have realized that, because he moved his attentions to Sands's face and removed the patches.

As usual, there were no rainbows.

The doc did his thing (whatever it was) to the eyeless sockets, talking all through it. Talking to Sands? Talking to Gloria? Didn't matter. There were much more interesting things to think about than the doctor's voice.

Things like colourful rainbows under a coconut tree in Polynesia.

Sometimes, fantasies were all you had.

* * *

A/N:

I would just like to thank **Kerttu**, **quick29 **and **vanillafluffy** from the bottom of my heart. I never expected anyone would review, so your words of support meant a lot to me.

Thank you,

Finduilas.


	5. Walk Like an Egyptian

(A/N at the end)

**Chapter 5 – Walk Like an Egyptian**

**Summary:** Sands takes another step on the path towards regained independence.

* * *

García was gone. 

Sands had thrown a little party inside his head the moment he heard the door close with the doctor on the wrong side of it – a jolly fiesta, complete with fireworks and The Marifucker playing the Malagueña on his stupid guitar. (Or maybe it was the Cucaracha. Heard one mariachi song, heard them all.)

In what could only be described as a trade-up, Grannykins had come back home from the market. ("Home?" When had he started to think of this miserable shack as Home?) The old gal had beelined for the kitchen to prepare dinner, and was now clanking her pots and pans in elation. The woman was positively orgasmic about cooking.

He was glad she was back: the house always felt silent and empty without her – and that, in turn, made his blackness seem much darker.

Dark.

Sands touched the pads that covered his eyes, then turned his attention to the wound on his left arm, fingering the still-healing flesh. Though he had spent all week pointedly ignoring his bullet-holes, he found himself unexpectedly pleased that the bandages were gone from his limbs.

Fact: any part of your body started itching like a bitch the moment you slapped a bandage on it - something that García did with gusto. The doctor would have carved one heck of a career for himself as an embalmer to the Pharaohs.

Pharaohs. Sands decided he was an Ancient Egyptian King in a sarcophagus. That's why he couldn't see – he was dead and sealed in granite.

Any day now, he would complete his journey to the Underworld and come back to life and to light. (Oh, light!) He would then spend eternity contemplating the Egyptian sunset on the banks of the Nile, while sensuous Nubians in see-through linen gowns peeled grapes for him.

A slave-girl with myrrh in her hair knelt at his feet and offered him a song. He was about to ask her for much more than that, when the kid's Grandmother walked into his room.

Even **he** had to admit that lying in the mummy position, with forearms crossed over his chest, had been taking it a bit too far. Grandma Esperanza screamed and launched into a fascinating medley of Spanish prayers, punctuated throughout by a few dozen deep-felt Amens. Sands could almost see her crossing herself. ("Almost" being the keyword.)

Gloria must have heard this attack of fervorous religiousness, because she was in the room faster than you could say "Holy Spirit". Esperanza, her prayers spent, started mumbling something about vegetables getting overcooked, and flew back to her pans.

He couldn't hear Gloria moving, but he hadn't heard her leave his room, either. 'You're still there,' he said, with well-practiced disinterest. He might as well have been commenting on the weather.

'Sheldon, what are you doing in bed?' She made it sound as if she had expected him to be tap-dancing in the middle of the Plaza.

'What does it _look_ like I'm doing?' Alright, now that was a stupid thing to say; ironic on too many levels. Fuck figures of speech. 'I'm _lying_ here. Picture an eye-roll.'

She ignored his attempt at confrontation. (She seemed good at that.) 'Didn't you hear what Dr. García said?'

'Yes. Well, um, actually no.' Was it his fault the man was just so goddamn boring? Could anyone possibly stay tuned in to his dissertations on the growth of scar tissue?

Yes, he tuned out. And he'd tune out again and again until the day the doctor said something Sands wanted to hear. Something that included the words "miraculous surgery" and "restored sight".

On that day it would also be possible to go skiing in Hell.

'Sheldon, you have to get up,' Gloria broke into his thoughts, just when he was about to start thinking about Swedish skiers in skin-tight lycra suits that revealed taut nipples. Damn her.

"Get up". No, didn't sound like a good idea. Getting up was something that he only did when Mr. Bladder called and he could no longer pretend he wasn't home. Gabriel would walk him to the bathroom, help him back, and that was it.

"In bed". Now **that **was a good place to be. You couldn't walk into anything, you couldn't get lost, and lying in darkness was normal (at least, for 12 hours out of 24).

He was about to explain all this to Gloria, but realized it would take some time, so he settled for 'Why?'

'Because you don't want a trombeem... ' she broke off, clearly out of her depth. Sands found himself wondering if she had ever even made it through middle school.

'A thromboembolism?' He used his best patronizing tone, a tone that hadn't seen a lot of action since Cucuy had turned to the dark side. (Insert sign of the Cross.)

'Yes. Dr. García said you have to start moving around,' she explained. He knew this was true. Even in hospitals, patients were encouraged to get up and about as soon as possible, to avoid clots.

But Sands wasn't about to play a nice game of "Dr. García says". Dr. García says get up. Dr. García says walk into the living-room. Slam into that wall. Nuh-uh, I didn't say "Dr. García says"!

'Move around? I can't see my fucking way!' He knew this was preaching to the Pope, but that didn't stop him.

The mattress dipped as she sat on the edge of the bed. He half-expected her to melodramatically take his hand into hers, but apparently she wasn't the theatrical type. Good.

'Look,' she started, in that unnerving level voice. ("Look"?! Could she possibly have picked a worse word?) 'Look, telling me you can't see doesn't work. Where other people may feel pity, or guilt, or _something_, I won't. And you know why? Because I know that it's not that bad.'

'Not that...!?' he started, but she cut him off.

'No point. I know **exactly **how it is. Been there, done that, Sheldon, for much longer than you.' Still level. 'So instead of telling me what it's like to be blind, why don't you let _me_ tell _you_?'

The really shitty thing was she was absolutely right. It frustrated his balls off.

He wanted people to recoil from his rage, to fear it; he wanted them to agree that he was the unluckiest, sorriest, most miserable son of a bitch on the face of the earth. He. Had. No. Eyes.

But no, what he got from Gloria were sickly-sweet things like "support" and "empathy". Shouting at her was as pointless as screaming at a fucking wall. Shit-on-wheels, he could really empty a clip into someone right now!

'C'mon,' she said, and this time she _did_ take his hand, tugging on it as she rose from the bed. 'Let me show you the house.'

Fuck it, maybe it **was** time he found out what lay beyond the kitchen.

So he got up.

* * *

A/N – Once again, I would like to thank four very kind people for their support: 

**Quick29 – **:o) Allowing Sands to really Feel is what prompted me to dabble in this story.

In the 3rd Act of OUATIM, Rodriguez shows us how Sands has no time to think or feel - he can only act on instinct. I wanted to see what would happen the moment he let his brain concentrate on his new reality.

**Mojave Dragonfly – **Heh heh, no that isn't all I wanted to say. ;o) The first chapter I wrote takes place about 6 weeks or 2 month after the DotD, and I've been writing back in time from there. It's a bit strange to know where Sands will end up, and then work on getting him there.

**Annys** – "He wouldn't be the usual sightless superman." Eep! You're in my head! :O

The first chapter I wrote (see above reply to Mojave Dragonfly) is called "No Comic Book Hero". :o) That was also going to be the title of the complete Fic, until I changed it for some unknown reason just before uploading.

**Savvy Tbird** – Will Sands get his cool back? ;o) Just wait till he discovers that Playboy has a Braille edition! :op

Just kidding. ;o) But yes, he'll definitely get his cool back. :o) (And yes, there **is** a Braille edition.)


End file.
